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Legislative debate over St. George begins to take shape, with handful of bills pre-filed

St. George organizers gather support

Residents sign a petition for the incorporation of St. George on Saturday, November 16, 2013. As signature collection continues, bills are also being pre-filed in the legislature that will affect the incorporation effort.
(Brianna Paciorka, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

The debate over the proposed city of St. George and a new school district are expected to be one of the hot topics of this year’s legislative session, at least for the Baton Rouge area.

At least five bills affecting the St. George effort are in the works. Three of them appear to be aimed at making it easier for new school districts to be formed -- including a new school district in the south part of East Baton Rouge Parish.

In the section of the state constitution that describes how schools receive state funding, it says that funding shall be given to “parish and city school systems.” But it also lays out a handful of additional systems that can receive funding, such as Central, Zachary and Baker.

That's generally been taken to mean that you can't form a new school district without amending the constitution. So when St. George proponents were trying to create the Southeast school district the last two years, they tried to amend the constitution to have their school district receive state funding. That required a two-thirds vote, and proved to be the part of their plan they couldn’t get passed.

New pre-filed bills address that language in the constitution. Sen. Bodi White, R-Central, who has been the major legislative backer of the Southeast school system and St. George, pre-filed a bill that would remove those “city” and “parish” restrictions, and allow any school district created by the legislature to have the authority to raise funds.

“Everybody always wants to know why it’s such a cumbersome process (to create a new school district),” White said. “If it should pass, then the debate on a school district anyone creates or changes in the future will be done in the legislative process.”

Rep. Hunter Greene, R-Baton Rouge, has pre-filed a similar bill that would remove the “parish” requirement for school systems from the state constitution. However, it would also require that an election be held to approve any new school system created from the territory of another district. Voters from both the new proposed school district and the existing district would have to approve the new school system.

The bills face a high bar: As constitutional amendments, both White’s and Greene’s bills require a two-thirds vote to make it through the legislature and then would be submitted to a statewide public vote in November.

Greene also has another bill that would ensure any public school system created in the legislature is automatically included in the state’s per-student funding system and has the same local taxing authority as any other district.

Another potential major bill that White has pre-filed is a proposal to break the East Baton Rouge Parish School System into four different districts. There would be a superintendent and school board overseeing all four, but deputy superintendents would run each district and the schools would have more autonomy than they do now, White said.

Finally, a public notice was issued this week for another bill, though it hasn’t been filed yet and it’s not clear exactly what it would do. The public notice of an intention to introduce a bill says it would “provide for the parish to continue collection of sales taxes previously authorized and being levied, and to continue providing services being provided, in the area within the corporate limits of any municipality incorporated after Jan. 1, 2014.”

It also says the bill would detail a time period for continuation of the tax collection, and provide for intergovernmental agreements between the parish and a new municipality.

Though it’s clearly connected to St. George, no one is stepping forward to say they’re behind the potential bill. Officials with Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden’s office say they’re not involved, and the St. George campaign says they’re not sure what’s in the bill and haven’t had a chance to look at it.